“One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption ‘I behave this way, and I achieve results. Therefore, I must be achieving results because I behave this way.’” – Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith’s method for changing and making those changes permanent has influenced my job as an executive coach to help my clients change to increase their self-awareness, enhance their leadership, and improve their performance and well-being.
Today’s focus is Overused Strengths, one of the critical areas I support my clients with, especially to enable their successful transitions and transformations:
- People’s self-proclaimed strengths frequently reveal themselves as their most glaring weaknesses. This phenomenon affects every one of us.
- People have no idea how their behavior comes across to those who matter, at work and at home. I call this the intent vs. the impact; for example, we may have the intention of being very attentive to details, but the impact on others is they may perceive us as micromanagers.
- People who repeatedly engage in one aggravating behavior on the job may not recognize that it’s happening, how it could undermine their career, or how to resolve it.
- An approach Marshall recommends to recognize an overused strength is by tuning in to our conversations. What aspects of ourselves do we tend to brag about? What we perceive as a strength could become a weakness when overly emphasized.
- The paradox of success is when the beliefs that carried us here may be holding us back from our quest to go there.
I help leaders identify what they need to change and improve to go beyond what brought them success and recognition. Together, one of the solutions we work on is understanding when their strengths are overused and avoiding the high cost on their and others’ personal and professional lives.
